AFTER being name-checked by President Biden in April for being “on the cutting edge of the future”, education and enterprise charity Young Enterprise NI has received a letter from the Department of Education confirming its entire funding of £550,000 is being cut with immediate effect.
This represents more than half of its budget, and leaves the organisation in a perilous financial state.
“We'll endeavour to continue our work in nurturing the entrepreneurial talent of young people in primary and post-primary schools from all backgrounds and communities here, but it won't be easy,” Young Enterprise chief executive Carol Fitzsimons told the Irish News.
“This vital public funding supported enterprise, entrepreneurship, and financial education for 45,000 young people and targeted those in areas of greatest social need.
“We knew we'd be facing cuts and had prepared for it.
“But we didn't expect to lose our entire funding of £550,000, which represents more than half our income.”
She added: “It will have a detrimental impact on our work, and it sends a poor message to the young people of Northern Ireland in relation to our ambitions for them to build a prosperous economy.”
Ms Fitzsimons - who in 2016 received an MBE for her contribution to entrepreneurship - said: “For years we've been pushing entrepreneurialism and skills to tens of thousands of children.
“Young Enterprise is more than a school project. We support young people to be ready to build a business in the future.
“Our work something the business community wants, and this funding decision is just not good enough.”
Business bodies have been swift to react to the cuts.
NI Chamber of Commerce president Cathal Geoghegan said: “Recent budget allocations have laid bare the long-term economic challenges facing Northern Ireland and we’re starting to see the reality of budgetary pressures come to fruition.
“Young Enterprise is a charity which works closely with the business community to inspire the next generation of talent - it now needs the support of effective, functioning and sustainably funded government.”
Alan Lowry, regional policy chair at the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said: “This decision is deeply regrettable, but symptomatic of a wider problem where short-term tactics will cause untold damage to the longer-term strategy to grow the Northern Ireland economy.
“Young Enterprise provides an invaluable range of hands-on skills programmes – not only to educate and upskill the entrepreneurs of the future, but also to sow the seeds of entrepreneurship amongst those who will go on to become another generation of wealth creators.
"Their programmes give school pupils the confidence and ambition to start their own businesses in the future, but it will be extremely difficult for Young Enterprise NI to continue to provide that level of engagement in the absence of this funding.”
Young Enterprise NI chair Judith Totten said: “We are so disappointed that the support for the enterprise, entrepreneurship and financial education of young people is being impacted in this way.
“We will seek to minimise the impact on the young people we serve by working with our wider stakeholders, including the local and international business community, as we believe the value that young people derive from developing entrepreneurial skills is too important to them and the Northern Ireland economy to be impacted on this scale.”
